


Day Twenty-Two

by dizzy



Series: Crisscolfer Advent 2014 [22]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2830565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Prompt:</b> antlers!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day Twenty-Two

Chris finds them in a box in his attic as he’s sorting through things, tossing most of it and keeping little. His fingers close around worn out felt over cheap plastic and the memory hits him like a phantom punch. 

He remembers how much he’d absolutely hated them when Darren put them on the dog. He remembers taking them off Cooper and hiding them every time he had the chance, but Darren loved them and _Cooper_ loved them so one of the two always sniffed them out. And eventually Chris didn’t really mind much, anyway. It just became a game. His role was to protest, to grump and whine, while they all secretly enjoyed the tradition. 

He misses that dog. 

He misses that _man_. 

*

It’s late that night by the time he’s finishes driving the last box to it’s designated place - some donated, some dumped, some to a friend who Chris realizes would value the mementos far more than he did. 

He comes back to find them on the table where he left them. 

There’s nowhere for them, really. He doesn’t have a dog anymore. 

But he can’t bring himself to move them, so there they stay while he packs and tapes up his life around them. 

*

He sits on the couch with a tumbler of whiskey in one hand and his phone in the other. 

He’s changed phones three times over since the last time he even laid eyes on Darren. He followed the news stories with feigned disinterest; marriage, divorce, second marriage, birth of a kid, second divorce. 

He’d kept a careful lid on the relief every time he heard it didn’t work. Nobody asked him about it, nobody put him in the position to lie. Darren’s just one of those black topics in his life, completely banned. 

It’s for the best that they never ran in the same social circles, right? It’s for the best that none of the friends they walked away from that show with were mutual, right? 

Yeah, Chris thinks, and swallows the alcohol with a wince. It’s for the best. 

* 

He sits around a rapidly emptying house for another two days while people come and by the furniture he liste for sale. He’s not so shy about giving away his address on the internet now. 

It won’t be his address in a couple more days, anyway, so why bother hiding it?

On the last day, with the last of everything gone, he’s left with two large suitcases, a bag of electronics, and one small folder that contains all the memories of his life for the last twenty years he’s deemed worth saving. 

They all tell him this is midlife crisis. 

He tells them all they can fuck right off, he’s not forty yet for another year. 

*

Eventually, it’s just him and the antlers. He could leave them. Just walk away and forget they existed. 

Instead, he unzips one of the large suitcases and puts them right on top. 

*

He’s sitting at the airport staring at the impending departures board. 

His phone is a heavy weight in his hand, but it gets lighter as he thumbs to a certain name he’s quietly transferred from phone to phone through the years. 

It’s probably not even the right number anymore. 

If it’s not, he’ll go like he planned. 

**Do you remember,** he types, **when we talked about running away together when the show ended?**

Almost instantly the letters appear. **Think about it all the time.**

**Darren?**

**Chris. All the time.**

Lighter and lighter, like the phone might just float right out of his hand. 

**I’m at the airport** , Chris types. **Anywhere you want to go. I’m in.**

Not a moment’s hesitation. **I’ll be there in an hour.**

*

Darren finds the antlers a couple days later. He holds them up and laughs in disbelief. “You kept this?” 

“Not on purpose,” Chris says, answering honestly. “They were in the attic.” 

“Well.” Darren walks over to him, and it still gives Chris a shiver to see this new Darren, this older more contained form of the person he knew so well, this man he’s getting to know again. He sticks the antlers on Chris’s head. “Merry Christmas to us.”

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog on tumblr](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/105934214885/crisscolfer-fic-a-day-advent-2014-day-twenty-two)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Last Piece of Us](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4262319) by [hopelesslydevoted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelesslydevoted/pseuds/hopelesslydevoted)




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